More Stories from the June 26, 2004 issue
- Health & Medicine
New diabetes drug passes early tests
The drug exenatide stabilizes and can reduce blood sugar in diabetes patients.
- Health & Medicine
Fish toxin stops cancer pain
An experimental drug fashioned from the toxin of the puffer fish can suppress pain in cancer patients.
- Chemistry
Connection blocker may stop viruses
Using compounds that disrupt the interface of two viral proteins might present a novel strategy for combating viruses, a study of herpes suggests.
- Physics
Why the thinnest sticky hairs rule
The foot hairs of geckos and other creatures that can walk on ceilings may be microscopic because only such slender hairs offer optimal adhesion, regardless of shape.
- Earth
Cost of protecting the oceans
Operating an extensive global network of marine parks in which fishing and habitat-stressing activities are restricted would probably be more affordable for governments than continuing to subsidize struggling fisheries at current levels.
- Physics
New pass at neutrino mass
The first experiment to create neutrinos in an accelerator and then beam them a long distance has found a long-awaited, new form of evidence that those fundamental particles weigh something.
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Sleepy brains take learning seriously
After people practice a hand-eye coordination task, electrical activity in specific areas of the brain during sleep reflects neural processes involved in learning to perform that task better.
- Animals
Hot Bother: Ground squirrels taunt in infrared
California ground squirrels broadcast an infrared signal when confronting a rattlesnake.
- Physics
Misbehavin’ Meson: Perplexing particle flouts the rules
The discovery of what appears to be a new subatomic particle with bizarre properties is challenging theorists' understanding of how matter behaves.
- Anthropology
Stone Age Ear for Speech: Ancient finds sound off on roots of language
Ancestors of Neandertals that lived at least 350,000 years ago heard the same range of sounds that people today do, suggesting that the ability to speak arose early in the Stone Age.
- Health & Medicine
Cancer with a Twist: Protein instrumental in breast-cancer metastasis
A protein called Twist, which orchestrates gene activity in cells, facilitates the spread of some breast cancers.
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Mr. Universe Jr.: Child’s gene mutation confirms protein’s role in human-muscle growth
A boy born with extra-large muscles has mutations in a gene regulating muscle growth.
- Materials Science
Cool Magnet: A little bit of iron gives magnetic refrigeration a boost
An improved material moves magnetic refrigeration one step closer to commercial reality.
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When Protein Breakdown Breaks Down: Bacterial toxin yields signs of Parkinson’s
Certain compounds that hinder cells from destroying waste proteins can produce symptoms of Parkinson's disease in rats.
- Earth
Long dry spell
Falling reservoir levels in the western United States are just one symptom that the region is suffering through a drought that may be the worst to strike in the past 500 years.
- Animals
Thoroughly Modern Migrants
Butterflies and moths are causing scientists to devise a broader definition of migration and this has raised some old questions in new ways.
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Beg Your Indulgence
The Japanese concept of amae, in which one person presumes that another will indulgently grant a special request, may apply to different forms of behavior at different ages, even in Western countries.
- Humans
Letters from the June 26, 2004, issue of Science News
Theory and practice Like physicists, mathematicians have always been divided into theorists and experimentalists (“Math Lab: Computer experiments are transforming mathematics,” SN: 4/24/04, p. 266: Math Lab). And, as with the physicists, the two groups of mathematicians have not gotten along very well. Still, in physics, there has always been an understanding that both groups […]
